Awareness, Consciousness and Spirituality Blog

A Deeper Perspective on Emotions

Sensitivity, feelings, thoughts and emotions are different terms which we may use without being very clear in ourselves about what they really mean. For example, we use terms like sensitivity, feelings and emotions interchangeably in many ways. It’s important that I define what I mean when I use these terms, in the context of this post, so that there is no ambiguity in your understanding of this explanation on emotions.

Sensitivity – It’s the capacity in you to sense, or be aware, of something, be it a thought, emotion or a feeling. This term is used to refer to the inherent capacity in you, as life-form, to “sense”.

Feelings – Colloquially, the term “feelings” is used interchangeably with emotions. However, in the context of this post, what I define as feelings are the various “inputs” you are capable of obtaining through your body – a human body has the capacity for tactile sense (sense of touch), auditory sense (sense of hearing), visual sense (sense of seeing), olfactory sense (sense of smell), gustatory sense (sense of taste) and emotional sense (sense of emotions inside the body). So basically, feelings are just the “inputs” that you can sense, for example you can feel cold/hot because of your tactile sense (coldness touches you or heat touches you), you can feel “sad” because of your emotional sense where you can sense this emotion of sadness possibly created by a present thought that creates a perception of sadness (or possibly due to the surfacing of a “stored-up” emotion created by a past thought of sadness).

There is also another sensitivity we have, as life-energy, which is “thought sense” (or sensing a thought). A thought-sense may or may not create a feeling, for example when you think of a lemon it may not create any feeling, but when you think of eating a lemon it can create a feeling of its taste. So a thought-sense is a sensitivity we have, but it may or may not create a “feeling” – this is why all sensitivities are not automatically feelings.

Emotion – When a thought creates a feeling in the body it’s called emotion. Emotion is a physical/bodily experience of a thought. Basically, intense/strong emotions are “unnecessary” and are the reason for 99% of physical suffering in the body, the rest 1% may be physical suffering created through some physical damage/injury. You can “think” without creating any significantly felt emotions – this may be a revelation to many, because usually we assume that a certain thinking will create a certain emotion, however thinking doesn’t have to create emotions. Only when your mind has a high momentum/intensity, where it can create thoughts with high amplitude, can it create resistance in your energy field, which is felt like a physical sensation (input felt by your emotional sense) – this physical sensation of resistance, created by a thought, is what we call emotion. Basically, emotion cannot be created without “resistance”.

You may ask – what about good emotions? Basically, there is no such thing as “good emotions”, there is only a state of absence of resistance/emotion which feels good, that’s all – it feels good because there is no resistance; so emotions cannot create a good feeling, rather it’s the absence of emotions that feels good. Remember that by “emotion” I just mean the physical (or bodily) sense of a thought, however a thought can only create a physical sensation when it has a high momentum/intensity – emotions are not necessary at all. For example, you can have a sad thought without “feeling” sadness in your body, without feeling this emotion called sadness – so in this case you are “sensitive” to a circumstance, and you are sad about it in your thoughts, but you are not feeling the emotion of sadness in your body, your body stays resistance-free. This is what I mean by the state of unwavering peace.

Thought – thought is an idea, perception, interpretation or an imagination. Life-energy is capable of “thinking”, just like life-energy is capable of being sensitive– it’s an intelligent energy. So thinking and being sensitive are two inherent natures/potentials of life-energy. Thought, when it happens, creates a form – this form is initially just a very lose non-physical form. However, focusing on a thought causes its condensation, it starts becoming “solid”. When a thought gathers “momentum”, it has a sense of solidity to it, where it can be “felt” more intensely. So in a human being (a form of life-energy), when a thought has a momentum/intensity, it can be felt through the emotional sense. In order to have an intense thought one needs to create momentum on that thought through “focus” – a lot of thoughts in a human being have a strong momentum because of their past/present focus on it. These high momentum thoughts can now create emotions which can get stored-up when they are not allowed a release (you can think of it as thought energy getting stored up in the body). This store-up of emotions creates more and more blockages (sense of congestion) in the body until it hits a high threshold where it becomes very painful for the body to tolerate emotions – now these high momentum thoughts are felt even more painfully because the body is already high on stored-up emotions.

Freedom from the resistance of emotions

Basically, as a human, what you desire is a state where you are free of the “emotional impact” of a thought, so that you can think without feeling the “bodily suffering” – like you can think about an insult without feeling the bodily reaction/pain created by the emotion of it. It’s like having an inner anesthesia to thoughts – you can imagine what a relief it is, it’s like the difference between doing a root canal (at the dentist) with anesthesia and without anesthesia.

If a thought does not create an emotional impact, you are already free of being afraid of that thought and you are also not in a state of inner resistance, and hence open to inner guidance/inspiration/wisdom – it may be a revelation to realize that our greatest fear is about the “emotional sense” created by a thought rather than the thought itself; for example claustrophobia is basically a condition where you think about being in an enclosed area and this thought creates a thought of “survival threat” of being in such a space (basically due to a fearful perception, possibly created due to some bad memory of closed spaces in the past), and this thought has so much momentum/intensity (due to your mind’s focus on it) that it creates a strong resistance in the body, what’s called the emotion of fear, and it is this feeling of resistance, in the body, which is really “uncomfortable” – it’s this feeling (created by the emotion) that you start trying to avoid, and hence keep away from situations that cause this phobia thought. If this feeling could be removed totally, you can have a fear of closed spaces (as a thought) but you won’t feel the bodily discomfort of this fear. What’s the advantage? Well, when you are free of the “emotion”, it gives you more freedom to live and even explore the fear, for example when you are free of the feeling of “nervousness” created by the thought of talking on a stage (stage-fright), you can still have fear of the stage (as a thought) but without this feeling of nervousness you feel more confident to talk on the stage.

To realize that it’s not the thought but the emotion created by the thought that’s the main cause of being anxious, of being disconnected from your inner wisdom, of exhibiting limiting behavior, of avoiding a certain situational responsibility, or the cause of denying a desired experience (like you may desire to bungee jump but are afraid of “intense” physical feeling of the fear created when you contemplate the jump or you may desire to go to a party but are afraid of the physical feeling of nervousness created by a thought about people watching/judging you). Basically, a lot of people who do the dare-devil stunts are the ones who’ve released the momentum/intensity of fearful thoughts, through the practice of “allowing” the release (sometimes without knowing about the mechanics of this practice), and hence don’t “feel” the emotions like fear, in an intense way, in their body. When you are free of emotions you are not a prisoner to a limiting thought, and thus, you can totally go ahead with what you want to do rather than be afraid of the sensations of an emotion like fear, sadness, guilt, nervousness, anger etc.

Being free of emotions is the state of inner wholeness

Basically, in a nut-shell, this whole state that spiritual teachers keep talking about of “inner freedom” (or what I call inner wholeness) is just a state of being free of emotions, that’s all. You can have all the “enlightenment” (mental understanding of life, like oneness, creator potential, understanding of mind, understanding of negativity etc), but if you are not free of emotions you can’t really be free enough to live the way you want because you will be constantly impeded by the fear of emotions – pain of any form is a survival threat to the mind, and it will keep you from doing anything that can create pain, so until you are free of emotions your mind will stop you from doing anything that creates emotions, including the things that you really want to do (like talking to this girl/guy you really dig, but feel tongue-tied because of the emotion of nervousness in your body created by the thought of being rejected). So, if you want to live life more fully, you need to be free of emotions. In fact, you can’t truly align with the inspiration of your life-stream, or its moment to moment guidance, unless you are free of the resistance of emotions. Being free of emotions is the state you reach through the “release” created by coming to a state of total allowing until the momentum of your mind ebbs away – it’s only through, a “conscious”, total allowing that a release of momentum take place permanently, there really isn’t any other short cut.

In the context of how I’ve defined “emotions”, I hope you realize that being free of emotions does not mean you become “insensitive”, because you still have your “thought-sense”. You can have thoughts of empathy, compassion, grief etc without “feeling” its physical impact and thus be resistance-free within, and thus not disturb the inner harmony of your body’s energy-field, and also not disconnect from your inner guidance/wisdom/inspiration. It’s because people don’t understand the difference between “thought-sense” and “emotions” that they think that being free of emotions will make you “cold” or “inhuman” – you have your human thoughts, like love-attraction, sexuality, fear, dislike, interest, empathy, sadness, guilt, anger etc but without the emotions of it in your body – hence they don’t impact/overwhelm you like before, neither do they cloud your wisdom through their intensity.

Being free of emotions does change your attitude towards life in a huge way – it can change many perceptions/beliefs/desires in you, it can change how you engage with your surroundings, it can change your preferences/interests etc, but the bottom-line is that you are no longer moving from a place of being a prisoner to a thought. For example, you can have a thought of sexual nature (like when you see a hot girl/guy), but you are not gripped by the emotion of sexuality to the point where you do something that you regret later, basically your wisdom prevails under all situations – you stop being a prisoner to anything, while also having the freedom to explore anything with a wisdom; Also, in this place you understand what it means to desire without craving, you can have a desire without the emotion/resistance created by the thought of its lack and hence are in a stronger place to manifest the desire. In truth, strong behavior/attitude of “neediness” is mostly created because of emotions, where we try to cling to a source that gives us a temporary freedom from some emotions like loneliness, sadness, sexuality, anxiousness etc – when you are free of emotions you have freedom to be internally “stable” and, thus, not move from a place of desperation.

26 Comments

IzJuly 21, 2012 at 3:55 am

Hey Sen, I’m still a little confused with this post. I get the idea of negative thoughts and how when they come we look at them in an understanding/disinterested way and by doing so, slowly over time they will impact our body less because less emotion will be generated by the thought (please tell me if that’s right). However, you’re view on feeling good still puzzles me. You say it’s a lack of emotion effecting our bodies that makes us feel good but what about thoughts that make us laugh, is that not an emotion that we feel in our body? Same with sexual thoughts, pretty sure that impacts me physically in the you know what area haha, or are both of those more like releasing energy? I also have a second question, sometimes I daydream about situations where I can land a girl by being funny. Some daydreams of course are unrelated to chicks but still make me laugh. It’s not that i’m afraid (fearful) of these daydreams but are they healthy, does it mean i still have a long way to go to reduce mind momentum?

SenPost authorJuly 21, 2012 at 4:32 am

Iz, when you are mostly in a state of resistance (a constantly stressed/fearful mind and strong emotional store-up) the thoughts that make you laugh, or thoughts of joy, basically just cause your mind to be distracted from its negative thoughts and hence in that moment you are free of resistance (free of emotions) and hence you feel good – so it’s the freedom from emotion in that moment that makes your body feel good, and we call it a happy state. But when you come to a state of inner wholeness, you are free of resistance/emotions already and hence you realize that it doesn’t make any difference to your inner experience state if you have thoughts of joy or not – also, the act of laughing by itself is just a physiological expression and it does not imply that someone is actually feeling good, because a lot of humans laugh even when they feel grief or nervousness just to act normal.

As for the sexual thoughts, it affects you biologically by sending blood to your genitalia and creating an adrenaline rush, which just increases your “tactile sense” especially in your erogenous areas – this tactile pleasure is what makes you enjoy a sexual act. The relief of the “release” will not matter so much if you did not have a strong tension created by the emotion of sexuality. The emotion of sexuality (the physical tension created by your sexual thoughts or mental need) is not really needed for you to enjoy sex, rather it can cause you to become impatient towards releasing this emotion (as a means of seeking relief from the emotional tension) and thus cause you to not really savor the act long enough or cause you to do something irresponsible (blinded by the emotional tension). I guess, you need to experience what it feels like to be free of the emotion of sexuality to realize the freedom it affords to really focus on enjoying the tactile (and visual, olfactory, auditory and gustatory) pleasure of the sexual act itself. Also, what you call the feeling of love is basically just the absence of the emotion of fear or hatred, by itself the feeling of love is just the natural state of being resistance-free it’s not an emotion – however when we have a lot of resistance within us, the thoughts of loving someone (or being loved by someone) are basically thoughts of well-being that take your mind’s attention away from its negative thinking (and hence removes emotions) and makes you feel good. In the absence of emotions, you always feel good and hence feeling good becomes “ordinary”, it’s just realized as a natural state of being – a state of wholeness.

As for your question on daydreams, well daydreaming that makes you laugh is always good, the point is what’s your state of being when you don’t have these thoughts to fall back upon? Your mind momentum only makes it intensity felt when it’s creating emotion generating thoughts, and it’s momentum can be sensed by the intensity of emotions it creates in your body.

Kevin W.July 21, 2012 at 4:31 am

This really sparked a big realization for me. Thank you

jJuly 21, 2012 at 6:15 am

I wouldn’t have understood this post a minth ago.
But w the practice of releasing stored up emotions through. Allowing myself to feel what i feel, I’m able to observe some of the negative thoughts without much impac. Which would’ve beenimpossible d/t so much stored up negativity.
im still struggling w inferiority complex but hope I’ll be able to overcome being strongly identifying self from mind/ego.
thanks

WillyJuly 21, 2012 at 11:06 am

Sen, i believe that majority of us reading your posts are either married or independent in one way or the other (parental indepencence)…

This world – as we can see- is evolving and many young people are also evolving in their understanding (more that before when we were young and information – as at that time – was limited)…. Now, alot of young people are having this strong desire/interest to know more (even more than we older ones….. Lol)..
And that brings me to this question:

Sen what pointer would you give for a young person/people(lets say teenagers or early 20s) who are still under the strict hands of their parents, and would wants to undergo this journey towards being balanced Or who had been having some negativity which they wana transcend.. Are they to wait untill they are out of their parents house/strict hands, to begin to allow/let go (because it may contradict their parents beliefs).. Or is it too early for them to start now?….

This question came as a result of a question asked to me by a teenage prodigy, and your clearance will be very helpful.. Thanks

yettyJuly 21, 2012 at 12:58 pm

this made me realize so many things.thanks sen

StarlightJuly 21, 2012 at 1:23 pm

Sen, I observed that there is this sense of satisfaction whenever the mind ruminates in thoughts of how those who have ‘done wrong’ to me and gives justification to cut them out of my life. This is a pattern I’ve observed since young, but I ‘m still not seeing the whole picture.

May I know why is this so?

True OneJuly 21, 2012 at 4:37 pm

Hi Sen,

Thanks so much for all your kind help and the posts. I need your help please.
My brother has a situation that needs help with but I don’t know what to tell him. Could you please give me your advice. So here is his situation. My brother doesn’t want to work and he hates working as he likes to be rich so he can enjoy life fully and does not have to work from 9-5 daily just like a prison. When he is at work he suffers by the fact that he has to work and he does not work harder or long hours to get promotion because he is not inspired to do so as he only goes by taking inspired action, so what should he do? he buys lotto sometimes and prays and hopes for inspired action to show him the next step but nothing has happened yet and is so frustrated. What’d you suggest in this situation, I can’t tell him he is fantasizing as I think if he has this desire to be free financially, the life force will deliver it but should he also do anything? maybe change his views etc.

Kindly let me know.

Thanks so much

abetJuly 21, 2012 at 6:30 pm

Idk about the new readers, but the ones like myself who have been reading your posts fro a couple months now. It is like your posts have evolved parallel to my own personal evolution, when I have a deep question about something I almost always find it in your post

OrlandoJuly 21, 2012 at 9:47 pm

Same here

AnneJuly 22, 2012 at 10:42 am

I was just thinking the same thing. Don’t now what I would do without you Sen.

CaseyJuly 23, 2012 at 2:21 am

Me too! He’s been a big part of my healing.

Kevin W.July 25, 2012 at 4:44 am

Couldn’t agree more

ancaJuly 22, 2012 at 12:29 am

Hi Sen,
What if somebody experience insomnia in the beginning of the process? I had insomnia two years ago when I had a strong anxiety moment because there were stress, fear and big chances in my life and it was like my brain couldn t adapt so quickly. Now I feel ok, I can allow intrusive thought, I reach to balance dark and light nature, I relax and I feel free like I can be myself again after many years of fear and feeling guilty and not knowing who I am. Now is the same – I have insomnia – but I feel good, more relaxed and pacient, I am not scared, I am not feeling guilty. The problem is that the sleep doesn t come. It is like there is a high level of energy in my brain and tension in the body. I hope this is not a psychosis or something of a kind. I don t think it is because all this makes perfect sense to me. But it is totally new and totally quickly. Maybe to quickly for me. I will take medication because the insomnia is very profound and than I will still follow this process because is the right thing to do. I am myself. Just that I realized how low was my level of awareness before and how unhappy I was because of that. If I take medication, you think it will affect my awareness?

AndersonJuly 22, 2012 at 10:54 pm

Hi Sen,

When I sit back to relax and just be aware, I have noticed that thoughts and images pop up in the mind, but they almost immediately dissolve or vanish again. Sometimes I wonder if I’m kicking them out to get rid of them, but it doesn’t feel I’m doing that. I feel that the other option would be to put some focus on them, to let them stay at least for a few seconds, but I feel this is not correct as I feel this would be to feed the thoughts and images with energy and whatever little effort, something which is to be avoided.

I also do not feel that I have any fear of my thoughts. I’d be happy to let anything come up.. it would be great relief and steps forward, at least then something obvious is happening. So I don’t think I’m running away from my thoughts or mind. Perhaps I just need to get more stable in residing in the aware stillness.

I do feel a difference when I relax in awareness (as much as my current capacity allows) as compared to those few times I have tried to “think about nothing” or “have no thoughts”. To try to have no thoughts is impossible, at least to me. I just end up having a thought about trying to not having thoughts. There are always thoughts (I guess since I sit in the mind trying to have no thoughts, which is impossible). But when I relax in awareness as per your pointers, I feel an immediate difference. It feels like that thoughts just don’t come up that much, and those that do, they evaporate or fade away almost immediately, and they don’t have much persistence to them at all. However, I don’t think this is what you call phase 3 (letting go of what arises) because I feel I haven’t yet gained enough solidity in the awareness to having moved to that phase yet.

So I’m wondering if you could shed some light on my particular experience. Where am I standing actually?

Warmest regards!

SuhasiniJuly 24, 2012 at 9:59 pm

Same here. Every time a question arises in me I find answer to that in Sen’s posts. thanks a million times Sen.

one thing i want to tell you is that i feel pain and hurt when i give compliments to the people and they never thank me for that or if they ignore that. i feel stupid when the people ignore me or never show intrest what i did for them. I also feel needs of compliments and i crave for it don’t know why. for example on the facebook when my friends put their photo there i always give them a good compliments with all my heart while when i put my photos on facebook they ignore it and never like and never give me any compliments but they give compliments to the other people’s photo etc. sometimes when i put status like meaningful words to encouraging the people they never like or they ignore it and they like and comments a bull shit status that other person put there. sometimes it kills me and i feel jealous because what i do is good things and they don’t like it. i still don’t know what to do so i decided to shut up and never like someone’s photo or status or give any compliments and never expect and compliments from the people ever again so am i wrong? is it good decision to leave the people alone and not expecting any thing from them ? sen i have been feeling this over sensitivity long time like 10 years and my childhood was horrible and scary. i was physically and emotionally abused by my parents, i was compared to my elder brothers by my parents and they always hate me for a little mistakes i make . I was also abused by my teachers, relatives, and some of the peers. I was been pulled by other children and elders many years of my life and now i am 26 years old. i feel sorry for my self and i need to overcome all this social anxious so please respond me and tell me something to do . your respond will help me a lot. thanks

SenPost authorAugust 2, 2012 at 3:20 pm

Abdi, there is a lot of “meekness” within you, which creates a servile vibe, which makes you come across as a person needy of approval. Even your “good nature” of being kind to people, and appreciating them, can seem contrived in the sense that you almost do it from a place of wanting to come across as a nice person seeking their approval in return. This basically a behavior created due to a imbalance towards light nature, where you are trying to be nice and loving out of fear/lack within you. You’ve also suppressed a lot of anger within you, a lot of hatred that you feel towards the way you got treated during your childhood lies emotionally suppressed in you – and you suppress it because you feel rooted in “meekness”, and hence are afraid of allowing anger (which is a more powerful vibration than meekness) in you. The growth path for you is to develop your sense of inner power and worthiness by letting go of this tendency towards meekness and servitude, you can find this inner power as you stop being driven from your mind’s conditioning and start connecting with your inner space. It’s a journey of connecting with your inner being and bringing the wisdom of this inner space to your mind. Your mind will only keep working from its present imbalance – it will either try to be nice (defensive) or it will try to be distanced/aggressive (offensive), both these behaviors come from the same state of imbalance created from the state of inner lack/fear. So instead of trying to find a solution through your mind, spend time connecting with your space of being, and from this space of connection allow a release of all the pent-up emotions of anger and fear created due to your upbringing. You can understand more about how to connect with your space of being, in these posts

Dear Sen,
I have a question about emotions. There exists a notion of the emotions being our “guidance system”. When something feels good, exciting, coming from a place of joy/passion/happiness, it is considered being in aligment with your desired reality, your Inner Being, your purpose. When something feels bad, or as if coming from a place of fear/hatred/confusion, it is considered out of alignment with your desired reality, an untruth, and an interpretation of a situation “your Inner Being does not agree with.”
My question is: when, at some point on the path towards a wholeness-based being, feeling little emotion (good or bad) and being able to have sad/happy/angry thoughts without feeling a strong corresponding emotion, what about the emotional guidance ? How would one be guided if thoughts do not elicit that much emotion? Or would the thought “tone”, or “flavour”, be enough to point in the right or wrong direction?
What is your experience and view on this?

SenPost authorAugust 7, 2012 at 4:13 pm

Dancer, actually emotions are never an accurate guidance system, mostly because emotions are created by your mind’s thought process/interpretations which can come from a narrow, and even imbalanced, perspective. The guidance system you learn to rely on is your inner voice also called inner wisdom in the form of instinct, intuition, inspiration stemming from your connection with your inner being. This connection becomes more and more clear, and strong, as your mind momentum (and emotional momentum) starts ebbing away. Basically, when the mind momentum dies away (the emotional pressure is also done with) and in this place you won’t have this inner conflict created by the two voices – the voice of a conditioned mind and voice of your inner being (or voice of your life-stream’s intelligence). By “voice” I don’t just mean words, I also mean a “sense” you get in the form instinct/intuition.

If you notice, that the feeling excitement is not always an accurate guidance system – it could just be coming from a deluded perspective in the mind. A lot of people commit some imbalanced action under the impulse of their over-excitement or under the impulse of passion. Also the “bad feeling” could be coming from a place of resistance in the mind – for example the mind resists a low state, and spurs you to distract yourself instead of allowing the energy to release. Also, an imbalanced mind can create resistance (a bad feeling) about a wisdom based action – so if you simply follow your mind’s reaction as your guidance system, you will just be lost to your mind’s responses, and the mind does have a lot of deluded thinking in its unaware state.

I want you to tell me how to concentrate on learning new thing like new languages, reading books and watching programs. i mean i can’t focus on learning or doing something interesting. my learning ability is very weak and my memory isn’t that good even my paying attention and focusing is bad . so please tell me how I can improve all these things ?

please reply me and help me like you did before. thanks

SenPost authorAugust 20, 2012 at 12:51 am

Abdi, If you find something really interesting, you don’t need to force yourself to “concentrate”. Instead of “forcing” yourself to concentrate, allow yourself to simply follow your inner inspiration on a moment to moment basis. Your natural expression will always feel effortless, and will be aligned with the talent, or natural aptitude/acumen, that you have. So the question is – why do you want to learn new languages? Or why do you want to read a certain book? is it something you think you “need” to do, or is it something you naturally find interesting. If you find something to be of your “natural interest”, you will not need to force yourself to concentrate, you will naturally be engrossed in it. It’s not that your focus is “bad”, it’s just that you are trying to focus on things that your mind really doesn’t find interesting. Get to know your mind/heart, and find out what really interests your mind, and follow this interest.

ShaunAugust 30, 2012 at 9:14 pm

Hi Sen, I have a major problem. Not too long ago I thought of a girl whilst going out with my current girlfriend. After this happened I suddenly panicked and started having thoughts such as “Do I still love this girl?”. So for over the past 2 weeks I have been tortured by my mind, as I keep thinking of this girl (which I have no romantic feelings towards). It will occur either at school, home or even in the presence of my girlfriend. I told her yesterday about what happened and as you could imagine she was very upset, but I knew I had to tell her. We have many discussions about it and I know I love her very much but my thoughts always put doubts in my mind. I feel like I am going insane. I will have these thoughts and feel like crying or even punching a hole in anything I see. So please can you give me any advice on how to calm my mind so these thoughts will go away and leave me alone. And I am most definite that I only had these thoughts of the girl on a whim, it was non intentional and I know I do not like her.

SenPost authorSeptember 3, 2012 at 4:19 am

Shaun, the question is – what makes you afraid of this thought? Your brain has a memory, and it can pop up thoughts of your past at any time, it’s totally normal, this is not something you can “control”. The problem is when you fear a certain thought that pops up. Your fear gives fuel (or interest) to this thought, and it’s indirectly also interpreted as “important” by the brain, which dutifully keep creating that thought more often. So the basic question you need to ask yourself is, what makes you fear this thought? Does it make you feel guilty that you should even have a thought of a girl other than your girlfriend? If so, you need to realize that the brain can create random thoughts, and you can’t control what your brain will think in the next 5 minutes, so to tell the brain that it shouldn’t create thought about a certain girl is not aligned with reality. Just because your brain creates a thought doesn’t mean that you need to have a “personal interest” in it, you can just let the thought be – you need to realize that you don’t control the brain (I mean you can “use” your brain, but it also has an involuntary beat to it, just like your heart beat). So you need to stop personalizing all the thoughts that your brain throws up, this is how you gain freedom from the brain. Use this thought as an opportunity to develop this sense of freedom. You can also read this post for most insight – why do we fear the mind?

New FrontierDecember 1, 2012 at 5:56 am

Hi Sen,

I greatly appreciate your post.

I need you to please help me not to respond emotionally and have that balance skew’d from inside. At times bro, I get bad hurt because of my emotional response. This is the root of my failed friendships or relationships.

Many people think that I am so assertive but deep down, I am an emotional man, too caught up in the moment. I’m 22 years old and it’s been this way since I can remember. It’s hard leaving this way because you can’t trust yourself. I’ve even contemplated suicide cause of my own emotions, but that won’t happen.

Strangest thing is that my greatest fear is reject but yet I open myself to it through my emotions.

Please help me in a ‘HOW TO’ format,

Thanks brother

TibrahiDecember 2, 2012 at 7:21 pm

Hi New Frontier,

Coming to a place where you are free from the intensity and pull of emotions first requires you to begin release the momentum of your mind (which includes the momentum of these emotions). Some help to initially get started with releasing the momentum of your mind can include practices such as the practice of sitting in the space of being. As you do this you will start to notice yourself acting less and less from the pull of your emotions and won’t be unconsciously lost in them (such as the act of people snapping is a very unconscious behavior). This is when you’ll be able to make conscious choices about how you want to act (instead of re-act) based on a given situation, which will be rooted in wisdom. When you are acting out of wisdom you will find this issue about not being able to trust yourself disappearing because your actions would now be coming from a conscious choice, and since the minds intensity is lower the feeling of worry about doing an unwise action doesn’t have so much pull anymore. But the first step before this is to consciously let go of the mind.

Also, when you start taking action in a conscious way, you will develop your own “how-to” format. You can also take in the understandings, perspectives, and insights of other people (so you don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel as Sen says), but you won’t follow others expecting them to fix something for you. Buddah once said something like “Don’t follow someone if you don’t agree with it, even if I had said it. Follow your own wisdom”.